Memphis Journal; New Stop for Elvis Fans Who Can't Get Enough

TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers.

About the Archive

This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.

Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems. Please send reports of such problems to archive_feedback@nytimes.com.

There's his white, 1956 Continental Mark II with its ''I-Elvis'' license plate. There's the Mercedes 280 SL Elvis bought for his wife, Priscilla, in 1970 and the Harley Davidson golf cart he bought for his daughter, Lisa Marie, in 1976.

Inside is the beloved pink 1955 Cadillac Fleetwood that was his mother's favorite car. Outside is an equally pink 1957 Cadillac Eldorado with its top chopped off that once served as a salad bar.

The question people are asking about the new Elvis Presley Automobile Museum across Elvis Presley Boulevard from the Presley manor, Graceland, is not whether it will succeed. The question is whether there is any limit in sight for the empire built around America's obsession with an entertainer who died 12 years ago.

The adoration reaches its annual crescendo at Elvis International Tribute Week, which will begin Saturday and last for nine days. It is expected to attract 40,000 to 50,000 pilgrims for some three dozen events including the annual candlelight vigil Aug. 16, marking the anniversary of his death in 1977.

''We like to think we know what we're doing here,'' said Graceland's executive director, Jack Soden, ''but we also know it could be the interest in Elvis is so strong that this place could be managed by idiots for 70 years, and the idiots wouldn't be able to mess it up.''

In the beginning, of course, was Graceland, the 23-room, 13.8-acre estate that was Elvis's home from 1957 until his death.

For a mere $15.95 fans can now tour Graceland, climb aboard his ''Lisa Marie'' and JetStar airplanes, see the ''Elvis Up Close'' mini-museum, inspect his custom bus, and take in the ''If I Can Dream'' film presentation.

The car museum is a good example of Graceland's evolving corporate approach. Until it opened in June, Elvis's favorite vehicles had been parked outside in his carport, in danger of losing out to the elements.

This caused the Graceland officials to take another look at their stewardship of these treasures. The result is the $1.5 million, 13,000-square-foot, museum featuring more than 20 vehicles including his 1973 Stutz Blackhawk, 1975 Ferrari Dino, four motorcycles, a Jeep and a snowmobile converted to run on grass.

It is all displayed in a setting billed as a summer night in Memphis. At its core is a mock drive-in theater, where visitors can perch on 38 front seats from 1957 Chevrolets and watch a film featuring the King in motion: in tanks, hot rods, pickups, bicycles, ferris wheels, speed boats and bulldozers.

There is the occasional visitor who wonders if Elvis saturation is in sight.

''To tell you the truth, I can't understand it,'' said 50-year-old Ed Pruett of Westland, Mich. ''I liked his music, but he's gone. He's been gone. I can't understand what keeps it going.''

His wife, Barbara, 40, suffers from no such confusion. She has furnished their home with Elvis plates, cups, clocks, pictures, statues, dolls, rugs, towels and wall hangings. She wears Elvis earrings and an Elvis watch, and, for good measure, named their 9-year-old Lisa after Elvis's daughter, Lisa Marie, the heir to the estate that runs and profits from Graceland.

''There can never be too much Elvis,'' Mrs. Pruett said. ''It's not just the music, it was him. He was for other people, not just for himself.''

The Graceland people make it clear there will be other Elvis enterprises to come. Since Graceland opened in 1982, attendance has risen every year to an estimated 700,000 this year. On July 3 alone, 4,920 people toured the mansion, the single biggest day in Graceland's history.

''There's no reason to think people won't be coming here in 2050, 2060 or 2089,'' Mr. Soden said. ''Look at Stephen Foster. His home is one of the top three or four biggest attractions in Kentucky, and Stephen Foster hasn't had a hit song in a long, long time.''

Foster has not been sighted for some time either.

If there is a hot topic among the faithful lately, it remains the status of Elvis's mortality.

There is the moderate faction, exemplified by Lorrie Carr, of Niagara Falls, Ontario.

''He's an obsession for me, but I don't think he's alive and eating at McDonald's,'' she said.

The radical faction takes the question seriously.

''I know there are a lot of things that point to the fact he might have died,'' said Marcia Carusillo of Middlebury, Conn. ''But there are a lot of unanswered questions. I'd rather think he's just gone away for a while, and eventually he'll be back.''

A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 8 of the National edition with the headline: Memphis Journal; New Stop for Elvis Fans Who Can't Get Enough. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe